


It Takes Time

by VKL42



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers-centric, albeit fairly mild (considering...)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2014-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 03:22:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1883247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VKL42/pseuds/VKL42
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam’s looking at him again. Steve looks down at his hands.</p>
<p>“Point is, Steve, it’s not gonna be ok all at once. You’re gonna have to keep reminding yourself that it’s not your fault. Until one day you start believing it. You’ll have bad nights too, but they’ll get fewer and far between. It’ll take time, Steve, maybe a long time, maybe not so long.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Takes Time

“Couldn’t sleep?”

“Yea.”

“Been having that problem a lot lately, huh Cap.”

Steve doesn’t say anything. The two of them wait each other out in companionable silence, Steve resting his arms on the balcony’s railing and Sam leaning against the sliding door to their motel room. Steve feels Sam’s eyes on him. They’re observing him, assessing him, but he feels their kindness, their understanding, as well. 

“I keep dreaming about him, about when he fell,” Steve finally says, “keep thinking about what I should have done differently.”

A pause, 

“All that stuff they did to him. I don’t.. I can’t,” Steve huffs frustratedly, running a hand through his hair, “None of it should have ever happened to him.”

A beat, then, 

“Buck was always there for me, even when we were fool kids back in the depression. He always had my back.”

A deep breath,

“I let him down, Sam.”

“Steve, listen to me. You’re gonna hear this over and over again. And you’re gonna get sick of hearing it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true: It’s not your fault. It never was, it never will be. They are the ones who did all that to Bucky. Not you, Steve. The here and now? That’s where you can help him. Okay? We can find him and help him now.” 

Steve watches a car’s tail lights in the distance, then looks back and smiles weakly at Sam, 

“I know. Its just… hard.. to remember that sometimes.”

Sam smiles gently at Steve, knowing when not to push,

“How about we go back inside and lie down. Try and get some rest.”

Steve follows him back inside.

This thing with Sam is new. They both know they like each other, and they both want to pursue it, but it’s kind of hard to start anything while searching for your should-be-dead, apparently brainwashed, assassin best friend.

“You can have the left side,” Sam offers. 

They slide into bed quietly, stripping off most of their clothes in the warm night air, both lying on their backs, a small amount of space between the two of them. 

Steve closes his eyes. 

Sam’s even breathing on his right keeps him grounded, lulls him into a gentle sleep. It’s the first real sleep he’s had in a couple days.

//

He wakes up with a gasp, chest squeezing with the memory of a mountainside and a train. 

The bed next to him shifts, and Steve startles a bit,

“Steve, hey, you alright?”

“Yea… Sorry for waking you. I assume I woke you. Um..”

Steve sighs.

“Actually no. I’m not alright. I, uh, nightmare. Again.”

Sam studies him carefully for a minute before looking away, staring at the wall in front of them. He takes a breath as if preparing himself.

“After Riley died, all I could see at night was him, right before he took the hit. It took me months to be able to get a full night’s sleep again. And it took me several more months before I could think about him without asking myself what I could have done differently.”

Sam’s looking at him again. Steve looks down at his hands.

“Point is, Steve, it’s not gonna be ok all at once. You’re gonna have to keep reminding yourself that it’s not your fault. Until one day you start believing it. You’ll have bad nights too, but they’ll get fewer and far between. It’ll take time, Steve, maybe a long time, maybe not so long.”

Sam reaches over and places his hand over Steve’s.

“C’mere.”

Steve moves up close to Sam, head resting on his shoulder. Sam smiles, Steve can feel it against his head, and runs his fingers through Steve’s hair.

“Whattya know, Captain America is a cuddler.”

A ghost of a smile flits across Steve’s face. He turns and presses into Sam’s chest.

He falls back asleep like that, with Sam’s fingers in his hair and his scent all around him.

//

This time when he wakes up the sun is shining and his mind is blissfully empty. 

“Morning, Super Soldier,” chirps Sam.

“What time is it?”

“Quarter past seven.”

Steve rolls over, slinging his arm over his face. Sam pats his elbow before hopping out of bed.

Various shuffling noises reach Steve’s ears. Then a pair of pants lands on his chest. 

“Hey--”

“Breakfast time, champ, the diner down the street has amazing waffles, apparently.”

//

The diner does have amazing waffles. 

The coffee is half decent too.

“So, where we headed to next, Cap?”

“As far as I can tell he’s stopped just outside the next town over.”

Steve looks up.

“Buck and I spent a summer with his aunt out there when we were real young, before the depression. It was a nice little town, probably hasn’t changed much.”

He sighs, rubbing his face,

“I don’t want anyone getting hurt, Sam.”

Sam nods, registering the implied ‘including Bucky’. 

“Let’s go get him, Cap.”

//

Bucky looks tired. 

More than that he looks downright weary. Confused, unsure of a lot, too. The fight’s drained out of him.

But he’s there. And willing to come with them. Of his own accord.

Steve lets out a breath he never even realized he’d been holding.

//

“Steve you’re gonna pace a hole in the living room floor if you don’t stop.”

Steve turns to Sam and grimaces. 

“Sorry. It’s just--”

“You’re worried about James,” that’s Natasha’s voice. 

She comes into the room a moment later, sitting in the armchair across from Sam.

“Yea.”

“Me too,” Natasha admits quietly.

After a moment Steve sits down on the couch. 

He looks at Natasha. She’s sitting with more tension than usual. Her face is distant, like she’s remembering things from a past life. Steve isn’t sure if they’re good things or bad.

“You knew him, didn’t you? Really knew him, I mean.” Steve asks. 

Natasha blinks. Pauses. 

“Yes.”

“Was it back when you were in the red room.”

She nods,

“He was one of the only good things I had back then.”

“You loved him.”

She doesn’t deny it.

//

It’s been four days since he and Sam brought Bucky back to the (newly christened) Avenger’s Tower. 

The doctor’s assure Steve he’ll get to see him soon.

Steve hopes so.

It’s been four days.

//

“There was an implant in his brain. 

It had been preventing his access to his long term memories. Muscle memory and anything they’d chosen to program him with would still have been accessible to him. 

It was fairly crude, however, and only partly effective, considering that after a while, or with certain triggers, it seems he would start to regain partial access to them. I’d postulate this is why they had to ‘wipe’ him so frequently. 

The technology had mostly broken down by the time you found him, but it was still preventing him from properly assimilating his own memories back into his mind. He would have seen flashes of memories, only they wouldn’t have felt like they belonged to him. 

Needless to say we removed the device. 

If you want, Mr. Rogers, you may go in and see him now.”

//

“You’re… Are you.. Steve? You are. You’re Steve. I.. I know you.”

Steve nods. 

“Yeah, Buck, it’s me.”

“And. That red head. That was Natalia. She was.. I knew her too.”

“You did,” Steve says, sitting by Bucky’s bedside.

He looks, he looks _alright_ , not _good_ , it’s too early for that, but he looks like things are slotting into place a little better for him. 

Like he can _remember_ again, even if it is all still mostly jumbled nonsense right now.

He spends five hours in there with Bucky, sorting through memories as Bucky struggles to start piecing himself back together, to reassemble the puzzle that is James Buchanan Barnes. Or at least, who he is now.

It’s rough. And slow going. 

But it’s a start.

//

It’s late.

Steve knocks on Sam’s door. After a quick rustle and a few padding steps the door opens.

“Um. Can I. Would it be alright if I--”

“Of course, Steve. Come on in.”

Steve does.

“Did you want to talk, or did you just want to share the bed?” Sam asks. 

“The latter.”

Sam climbs back into bed, Steve hesitates for a second. Sam smiles gently at Steve. 

“You coming?”

Steve huffs a little laugh, crawling into bed with him. 

Sam’s steady breathing is soothing. 

“It’s. I’m getting better. With the whole… not blaming myself.. thing,” Steve begins a little while later, “But it’s. God, Sam, sometimes there are just days, where I see him struggling. It’s--he sometimes doesn’t recognize me, keeps thinking I’m still that skinny 5’4 kid.”

Steve laughs. 

“And then other times it’s like he’s back in the red room. With Nat. And those times.. she’s so good at helping him through it. I try to help, but sometimes.. I don’t know if I’m...”

He shakes his head.

“Then the worst times.”

Steve swallows, getting quiet.

“The worst times, are when he relives what they did to him. And then what they made him do. He hardly says a word. But I know how much it hurts him, I can see it. And.. it breaks my heart, Sam. He hates what they’ve made him do, blames himself for it. But it wasn’t _him_ , They _programmed him_ to do that, it’s not his fault.”

His voice drops to a whisper, only ever so slightly unsure, 

“Just like it’s not my fault he fell off that train in the first place.”

Sam listens to all of it, pulling him close. 

“It takes time, Steve.”

Steve hears the unspoken ‘you’re doing well. you’re both doing well’.

//

It’s been nine months.

Steve can sleep without dreams of a train in the mountains.

He still has bad nights, but Sam was right. 

It just takes time.

//

“Aww c’mon, Stevie, let Nat pick the movie.”

“Nuh uh. The last movie she picked gave me nightmares for a week. There’s no way she’s picking this time, Buck.”

“I got the popcorn, what movie are we watching?”

“Steve won’t let me pick the movie, but other than that, Sam, your boyfriend hasn’t made any decisions.”

Sam laughs,

“How about Legally Blond?” 

Steve grins, looking over at Sam,

“Great idea.”

Putting the popcorn down on the table, Sam leans over and gives Steve a peck on the cheek.

“You two are disgustingly adorable,” Nat supplies from her seat cuddled up under Bucky’s metal arm.

“Right back at you, Little Red,” Sam fires back, leaning in to kiss Steve again.

//

“Suit up! We’ve got giant lizard men attacking downtown.

Steve grabs his shield, Sam dons his wings, Nat and the other Avengers gear up.

“Hey, Bucky, you coming?”

“Of course, punk.”

“Jerk.”

//

Steve hasn’t thought about the train in two months.

He’s not perfect, but he’s. He’s ok. 

It feels good to be ok.

//

**Author's Note:**

> So this is actually fairly different to how I normally write, but it was a lot of fun to write it in this 'style'. Who knows I may write more stuff like this in the future. In any case, hope you enjoyed it!
> 
> [I'm on tumblr at [toosmallortootall](http://toosmallortootall.tumblr.com)]


End file.
